The BEST Barbie Steak You'll Ever Make (The Aussie Way)

Grey the whole way through, sitting in a puddle, and chewy as an old boot. That's a barbie steak cooked by the one-flip rule, love. Here are seven tricks for a steak with a deep brown crust that's pink and juicy inside, on any backyard barbie. Every recipe from my kitchen is in my book, Shirl's Aussie Kitchen: https://shirlscookbook.com/yt 100 proper Aussie recipes with exact measures. It's a PDF, A$37, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The seven tricks: 1. Pick the right steak. A thin, lean, cheap one goes grey and tough before it browns. Get a scotch fillet (a rib eye with the bone off) or a porterhouse (the New York strip), about two and a half centimetres thick. A T-bone does the job too. Look for the little white flecks of marbling, and ask the butcher to cut them thick. 2. Salt it early if you can. The salt draws out a little juice, dissolves in it, and it all soaks back in, so the steak is seasoned right through. Some cooks salt the day before and leave it on a rack in the fridge, some do it forty minutes ahead, and plenty of good chefs salt it well right as it goes on. Pepper can go bitter on a really hot grill, so some chefs add it after. 3. Pat it dry. A wet steak can't brown. It steams, and that's your grey. Press paper towel on both sides until the towel comes away barely damp. Taking it out of the fridge 20 or 30 minutes early is optional. Drying it matters more. 4. Get the barbie properly hot, hot enough to show a wisp of smoke, so you hear a big sizzle the second the steak touches. For a really thick steak, cook it gently on a low side and finish it on the hot side. And searing doesn't seal the juices in. The crust is there for flavour. 5. Flip it often, every minute or two, not once. The one-flip rule leaves each side soaking up heat so long that the outside overcooks before the middle is done. Turning it often gives you a thin grey edge and pink almost all the way across, which is what America's Test Kitchen found. Food scientist Harold McGee says it cooks faster too. 6. Use a thermometer and take it off early. Probe the thickest part from the side and take it off at about 52 degrees for medium-rare, because it keeps cooking while it rests. Wipe the probe between steaks. No thermometer? The old hand test will get you by. 7. Rest it. About five minutes on a warm plate with foil laid over loosely, not wrapped tight. Then slice across the grain. America's Test Kitchen measured a porterhouse cut across the grain taking only a bit over half the force to bite through. If it goes wrong: grey with no crust means it was wet or the barbie wasn't hot enough. A thick grey band means it sat too long on each side. Black outside and raw inside means it was too thick for full heat the whole way. Gone too far? Slice it thin across the grain tonight and take it off a few degrees earlier next time. A puddle on the board means it didn't rest. A bitter crust is usually the pepper. Two extras. Never put cooked steak back on the plate the raw meat was on. A whole steak can be pink, but sausages, mince, and marinated or tenderised meat have to reach 75 degrees in the middle. Leftovers go into a shallow container in the fridge once they've stopped steaming. Eat or freeze them within two or three days. Cold sliced steak makes a cracking sandwich. What did your dad, or whoever had the tongs, do to the steak that nobody else did? Tell me in the comments. Each week I pick the 3 best stories and they get my cookbook free. There's no draw and you don't have to subscribe. Rules: https://shirlscookbook.com/giveaway Next time: the Sunday roast greens. Broccoli, beans and peas that come out bright green, never grey, and the pinch of something from the pantry half our mums put in with the peas. Chapters 0:00 The grey steak problem 0:33 1. Pick the right steak 1:36 2. Salt it early 2:22 3. Pat it dry 3:13 4. A properly hot barbie 4:38 5. Flip it often 5:42 6. Thermometer, off early 6:29 7. Rest it, slice it 7:25 Fixing a steak gone wrong Shirl is an AI character. Her voice and pictures are made with AI, and the recipes and tips come from published cooks and food safety sources.